My Vinyl Collection’s Love Hate Relationship

What’s up MM? This is KIZ-ONE here with my first post on Maschinemasters.com. This was going to be a post on how to store and shelve your vinyl record collection. Then, it was also going to be about how much I love my vinyl collection. But then I almost forgot about how much I hated storing and luggin’ around my collection. So I decided to do both and share my “Love and Hate” relationship with my vinyl collection.

You see there was a time when I thought that I could own every record that I ever wanted, but then reality set in and told me “You can’t have every record that you ever wanted, Where would you store them”? So I said to myself, “Self, (yes sometimes I talk to myself, don’t you?) You can just buy a house with a basement and you could just store them there”. You see the problem with that was, I was staying in a one bedroom apartment and I had records in the front room, in the closet, in the coat closet, and from time to time in the bathroom. Second problem I had, there’s a newborn on the way, but it still didn’t deter my quest to have that 3rd copy of “Funky Drummer” by James Brown. Third problem, I was a club/mobile/radio DJ for about 3 years prior to this so I was getting serviced from all the record labels known to man.

It was nothing to get doubles of the Chronic by Dr. Dre., Triples of Ready to Die by Biggie. At my highest point I was getting about 15-25 records a week, plus getting records from a record pool. To a vinyl junkie, this fed my fix for a long time. Just like on the show “Hoarders” you never really think you have a problem. As the saying goes,”You can’t see the trees, because you are in the forest”. I just figured that at some point I would sell them later when I needed the money to get a rare 45.

Meanwhile, a computer company was creating this little computer program. I swear it was by vinyl addicts who knew that you eventually you would run out of space to store your vinyl collection. What they didn’t know was that it would kill a media that has been around since the early 1800’s. It would have such a grand impact on radio/club and mobile DJ’s everywhere. It was called: “Final Scratch”(which Serato later perfected the program, and change history for a lot of DJ’s across the world)!

Can we all say that the bomb had been dropped! The bottom completely fell out on vinyl! DAMN! I missed the bus! It was like over night, riding the rhythm, to scraping the bottom. I do have to say it made going to the gigs a lot easier, not having to lug 6-7 crates of records for a DJ gig and it did create a lot of new DJ’s. As for me and my collection I had to move my joints from my one bedroom apartment, to a house back to a one bedroom apartment( after a breakup, a divorce, and 3 kids later) to a storage rental where I keep all my records now. I visit my collection, from time to time and wonder if I will ever give them a new home, but then I think of all the lifting and moving them three times, I start to get the shakes. They take up so much room!

I guess, if I have to move them again…… I’m just going to throw them away… Ha, even I don’t believe that lie!

KIZ-ONE

 @BlackSteelBros

blacksteelbrothers.com